Change is in the air and I can feel the season shifting from Summer into Autumn. The farmer in the nearby field is harvesting the crops (a source of great entertainment for my youngest), and if that wasn’t enough to clue me in, the relentless ‘back to school’ ads certainly would do the trick. And all of this means that it’s almost time for my two youngest children to go back to school for the new term.
‘Back to school’ season is something that I’ve been doing for well over a decade now both as a mother and a teacher. With two children in the local primary school and my eldest home-schooled, I’ve settled on an approach that allows for a calm start to the school year.
Here’s how I do it…
I Adopted ‘Under-consumption core’
It’s always tempting to buy new everything for the start of term but these days I ask myself, ‘Do the children really need new everything to start the school year?’
I start by reviewing what has been outgrown and keep the items that are still in perfectly good condition. This year I’ve bought new shoes, polo shirts and socks but kept the same trousers, skirts and lunchboxes from last year.
If you haven’t gotten around to buying new uniform and school resources just yet, I fully recommend doing a wardrobe try on first to see what still fits. You might save yourself a job or two.
I Assess the Family Rhythm
After a slow summer, I find it necessary to review our family rhythm and make changes. A week before the end of the holidays, we reintroduce earlier bedtimes and breakfast times so that the first week back isn’t such a shock to the system.
I also review what worked well during the previous school year and what need needs to be adjusted. Last year, we decided to move our daily reading session to before school and it made such a huge difference, especially for my youngest child. This year, we are introducing a few after school clubs now that my children are fully settled into UK life.
I’ll be talking about our approach to homework in a brand new series: How to Support your Child’s Learning from Home which will be released this Autumn.
A Place for Everything
Children can struggle to get ready for school independently if there is no system in place. It’s so much easier for children to find their shoes, coats and bags ready for school if there is a designated space. And whilst I’ve known this for a long time, implementing it was so hard last year because the house was in renovation chaos - for months, our dining room doubled as a cloakroom which was not ideal!
When we moved back to our UK house, we knew that storage space would be an issue so renovating the porch area was something of a priority for us this summer. We decided to block up two of the windows to make space for a cloakroom that fits the space perfectly. The boxed seated area is roomy enough for bags and shoes which solves the problem of shoes blocking the doorway . This week I’m adding labelled boxes for the children to help keep things organised when school starts.
With that being said, you don’t need a brand new porch area to make organisation simpler! Other ideas to consider include: low coat hooks that are easier for children to reach and designated baskets for belongings.
I Set Calendar Reminders
Google Calendar is basically my personal assistant and without it, I would probably miss half of the events organised by the school! With three children, one of whom is home-schooled, I need to have a designated place to input all of the information I receive from school and schedule my teenage sons lessons.
I set up family, work and personal calendars that include recurring events (such as PE day or library day) and one-off meetings with the school along with reminder notifications. Any communication from the school immediately gets inputted into the calendar so that I can keep myself on track.
In addition to this, I also use a planner that I created in Canva to help keep me on track with the seasonal family rhythm and day-to-day events. I use it in conjunction with Goodnotes on my iPad and it’s really helped me to keep focused from day to day.
I’m currently testing out the Autumn planner I created and this will be available to ‘A Playful Year’ subscribers next week.


Coming soon…
If you view this newsletter via the website, you might’ve noticed a few changes to the structure of the ‘blog’ aspect of ‘How I Drink my Coffee Hot’. Whilst paid content was originally posted as monthly series, I have now organised information by phase so that you can navigate content in a suggested order.
To distinguish free and paid content, I am now calling the paid section ‘A Playful Year’.
A Playful Year also contains content from courses originally hosted on my website thisplayhome.com , including ‘Playful Days at Home’ and ‘Play Space 101’, alongside the paid Substack series that were initially released every month.
When I first started this Substack page, I wasn’t too sure what direction I was going in. Consequently, the original series have been reorganised to provide a better flow of information.
I find that my own focus has changed now that my children are older. I still believe that play is important, but as my own children navigate the middle and teen years of childhood, I have found myself wanting to cover those topics. Upcoming changes to the course will include more ‘school years’ series, in addition to articles on the middle and teen years of childhood.
Whilst paid series haven’t been deleted, in the coming months, articles will be refreshed and downloadable resources will be updated.
What’s included in a paid membership?
Access to the ‘A Playful Year’ course - you can find the entire course index below. The course is available year-round and can be worked through at your own pace.
Access to upcoming series and events - coming Autumn 2024
Access to archived ‘How I Drink my Coffee Hot’ posts (all free posts are archived after two weeks)
Monthly calls and chats are being planned, but will depend on engagement - please let me know if this appeals to you!
Upcoming Series and Events
New series will be released in the Autumn on 2024. Planned topics include: How to Support your Child’s Learning from Home, An Introduction to Home-schooling and How to Raise a Reader.
Monthly chat threads and topic-based calls are planned, but will depend on user engagement!*